Friday, December 20, 2013

30 YEARS OF THE MELVINS

Thirty years ago, three high schoolers in Montesano, WA started a
band, playing Hendrix and Cream covers before moving onto writing their
own punk songs. Guitarist Buzz Osborne, bassist Matt Lukin, and drummer
Mike Dillard were the first Melvins.
A lot has changed in that camp in those 30 years; Dillard left less
than a year in, and Lukin would move on to a job with Mudhoney (to be
replaced by a series of bassists). Osborne, though, later that year
would team up with Dale Crover, and the two would go on to a career
spanning three decades, handfuls of lineup reconfigurations, 19 studio
LPs, and a place in music history that many consider to be the root of
grunge and the inspiration for countless sludge metal, stoner rock, and
generally adventurous bands.
The latest record to add to their massive catalog is Tres Cabrones,
in which Osborne and Crover bring Dillard back into the fold, the
founding drummer taking over the sticks, Crover handling the bass.
Described as “the closest we’ll get to the original Melvins lineup,” the
record manages to be a reunion of sorts without the stale air that
comes with that territory. That would seem to be largely due to the fact
that Osborne and Crover work too damn hard to spend much time waxing
nostalgic, a nature evidenced by the phone conversations CoS had with the two permanent Melvins, dipping in and out of their long career, Tres Cabrones,
golf, collaborations, and KISS. And, it wouldn’t be the Melvins without
a few candid statements about the rest of the musical landscape,
including choice words for music critics, the Smashing Pumpkins, Kurt
Cobain, and Courtney Love, as well as compliments for Tom Petty.

Did you have a plan B? A backup plan if the Melvins didn’t take off?Dale Crover (DC): [Laughs.] Nope. Never had a backup
plan, burned all the bridges. Dropped out of school, that was it. That
was that. And I haven’t looked back. Hey, it’s worked out so far. But if
it all falls through, insurance salesman I will be. If there’s still a
market for that kind of thing. I guess there’ll always be a market for
that.

Buzz Osborne (BO): Weirdly enough, by the
late ‘80s we were making enough money, barely, to not have to have
another job besides playing in the Melvins. We were very creative
financially to make that happen. But this was long before the grunge
explosion or any of that happened. We knew very well that we were
probably going to do okay, but it was never going to be in the millions
of people liking us. Nobody understood that better than me. So, I never
had any false ideas that we were going to be million-selling pop stars.

Cobain had that wounded junkie look that people at MTV
thought was so amazing. But, honestly, if him or Chris Cornell looked
like Fat Albert, they’d never have sold anywhere near as many records.
Nobody would’ve cared. The whole package was there. Whether people
believe that or not, it does make a difference. I don’t look like Chris
Cornell, and I’m never going to. I’ve never had those false delusions.
So, oh well, that’s how it looks.

Once in a while it happens, where looks don’t matter. But
I’m very at home with where all that stuff is. If somebody wanted to
dismiss our band because of what we look like, then I can’t spend any
time worrying about it.

Besides the start of the Melvins, ‘83 is often considered the
start of the Internet as we know it, the movement of ARPANET to TCP/IP.
That’s been a pretty drastic game-changer for the music business.

DC: Well, it certainly makes it easier to
get the word out there. Of course, it’s probably the greatest invention
in our time, I would say. [Laughs.] It’s amazing the way you can spread
information. At the same time, it’s also ruining the music business, but
you have to think in different ways.

I know I’ve heard Buzz talk about being pro-MP3, as
a way to spread your music to people that otherwise would never have
heard it. But, the format definitely has the potential to hurt quite a
bit, obviously, in terms of piracy.

DC: Well, I mean, unfortunately, that’s going to
happen. We probably saw that coming a while ago. That’s pretty much been
the reason why we’ve been trying to do all of the handmade stuff that
we’ve been doing. The vinyl stuff, as long as there’s somewhat of a
vinyl resurgence. I think it’s more just that people want to collect
stuff, to collect cool stuff. People who are our age really like it
because they liked vinyl when they were younger. There’s some interest
with younger people, and there will be for a little bit, but even that
will eventually fade away. But the art part of it will keep going in
some respects.
I guess when the vinyl boom fails, then everybody will be hip to CDs,
and we’ll revisit all those again. Kids will probably start saying CDs
are the best. MP3s are kind of like the cassette of this age. I pretty
much bought my whole record collection again when CDs came out, thinking
that they sounded the best. And the thing that convinced me about that
was hearing our first record on vinyl, and then hearing it remastered
for CD, and just going, “Holy fuck, man. There are things I can’t hear
on the vinyl.” And that could be the mastering job, but if you know
anything about mastering, what those guys do, what gets done when you
make a record, and just the limitations that vinyl has compared to
digital, it’s amazing, you know? I always thought that CDs sounded the
best.
But, at the same time, I don’t care. I’ll listen to records, I listen
to MP3s. I don’t really have any cassettes any more. Kind of got rid of
those. Eight-tracks, though. The next stuff will be on wax cylinder.Another thing that happened in ‘83 was Kiss appearing in public without makeup for the first time.

DC: Oh wow. [Laughs.]

And I know you guys have a long history with KISS. I
love the solo albums you did modeled after their solo albums. Do you
have any memory of that moment? Did you have any special connection with
Kiss that early on?

DC: A special connection, for sure. By that time I wasn’t… I think they lost me after, definitely after Dynasty,
and even that record is pretty questionable. I was listening to that
record, I drove from San Fransisco to Los Angeles the other day, and a
friend of mine had some CDs, and that was one of the only ones. I wound
up listening to that twice in a row. And, uh… Yeah, it’s a pretty bad
record. [Laughs.] There’s a couple of OK songs on there, but I really
like their early stuff the best.

DC: So, I wasn’t into KISS at that point
anymore. Once I joined the Melvins in ‘84, those guys reminded me of how
good the older KISS stuff was, ’cause they still listened to it. And,
actually, even though Buzz was a few years older than me, the first
concert he went to was KISS, the same one I went to in Seattle. But we
didn’t know each other in ‘79. But, eventually they put their makeup
back on, and we toured with them. [Laughs.]

BO: No, you know, I mean, I liked KISS probably in the ‘70s, but by the time they put out Dynasty, I was done. Maybe before that. The Love Gun record, I was done. I can listen to, like, Hotter Than Hell,
and think it’s good. And it is good. The thing about them is, as
ridiculous and stupid as it is, they really had good songs. I mean,
“Detroit Rock City” is as good a rock song as I’ve ever heard. There’s
nothing wrong with that. If they were just image, no one would care.
Same with Alice Cooper. If he didn’t have good songs, I would never
listen. I’m not taken in by that crap. All show, no go, you know? It has
to be good. That stuff has to be good. That’s what they have over image
acts.

You can take KISS, and strip them down to nothing, and have
them in a club with no makeup, little tiny amps, and if they played
“Detroit Rock City”, they’d still be good. Same with Alice Cooper, if he
played “Billion Dollar Babies” at the Troubadour with nothing, he’d
fucking kill it, because it was good to begin with. That’s important.
That’s the most important thing. In a world where we are surrounded by
media on all sides, and at the click of the button you can see what Blue
Cheer looked like in 1968, I think we have to make things more human,
at least for us. I have to go out there and make this happen in people’s
faces, and that can’t be done in a place that was designed for a
sporting event. I would rather just go to the movies. I don’t enjoy
those shows. I don’t like that. And that’s what drew me to punk rock to
begin with, I liked the intimacy of it.

I’d assume you have the same feelings about festivals.

BO: We’re not in a position to turn down
festivals. We don’t get offered a lot of festivals to begin with. I’m
not in a place monetarily to turn them down. But if I had massive
amounts of “fuck you money” in the bank, I would never play someplace
like that. I would also never play a venue I wouldn’t want to go to. If
were multimillion-selling band, I would never play a venue that was
bigger than like, 1,500 people. Why should I? If it was designed for
hockey, why would I want to put my band there? Especially if I had
millions of dollars. The reason bands do is that is because they’re
lazy. That’s why they do it. They want to make as much money with as
little work as possible. Would you rather see a band like Roger Waters
do The Wall at the Staples Center or the Henry Fonda Theater? Uh, duh.
I’d rather see him do it at the Henry Fonda Theater with no staging,
just play the whole album. I’d be much more excited about seeing him do
that than I would be seeing him [at the Staples Center]. I might as well
go to the movies.

If I’m going to go to the Staples Center, I’ll go to a
hockey game, and I don’t go to many of those. Or baseball. This place
designed for baseball is going to be used for a concert? Not me.
Festivals are just by and large a good way for bands to make a lot of
money. And we would do them because I need the money. But that doesn’t
really come up, so it’s not an option for me. But if I was super-rich,
there would be all kinds of shit I would not be doing. A huge list of “I
will not do.” I think bands should work harder. If they’re going to go
out and do that, they really should go out and deliver something you
couldn’t get from any other band, whatever that may be.

An arena…It’s a head-scratcher for me why a band would do
that. Put it in a smaller place. Like Tom Petty, I’m not a huge Tom
Petty fan by any means, but he was doing like 15 shows at the Henry
Fonda theater here in LA. He could play one huge show, but why didn’t he
do that? Because he knows this would be better. And he doesn’t have to
do anything. You know what? Everybody that went to those shows had a
really great time, and a much better time than had they gone to see him
at an arena. Good on Tom. I have to hand it to him for that.

Buzz Osborne (BO): What’s funny to me is
that people will go, “It’s like they never quit. They sound like they
did in ‘83.” Are you fucking joking? We don’t sound anything like we did
in 1983. We sound like we do now. We never would’ve written music like
this in 1983. There’s no way. People have this idea that its that
lineup, or most of that lineup, that it’s going to sound like that. I
wrote new songs. But, I’ve read reviews where people go, “Picking up
exactly where they left off in 1983.” No. Picking up where we left off
six months ago. [Laughs.]

It’s just the fluidity of you three playing
together, so in sync. That more than the music, to me, is what sounds
like picking up from so long ago. You guys sound like a tight unit for a
band that had only recently started playing together in this
configuration.

BO: Right, well, what we did was, we
picked out the songs before Dillard got here, and had some ideas about
what we were going to do. Dillard came down in two weekend sessions, so
we had about six days total with him in the studio, so we knew we had to
get his parts done, so we had the stuff basically mapped out. So, what
we would do before we’d go to the studio, in my living room I would play
acoustic and Dillard would work it out with his hands on his knees.
When things were fresh in his memory, we’d go down to the studio, run
through it a few times, and record his part, until he got it. And then
we’d move onto the next song.

BO: Dillard is a family man. He’s married
to the same woman he was going out with when we were in high school,
believe it or not. It never happens, but in his case it does. And they
have three kids, and he’s a union machinist. So, we didn’t have a lot of
time with him, so we really needed to make the time we had work. So,
there wasn’t a lot of time for jamming or those kind of things. I knew I
needed to have my end wired. And I wrote songs with that in mind, and
ones that would work with him and Dale. Dale is not John Entwistle, and
Dillard’s not Keith Moon. So, we wrote songs that were realistic. I
honestly believe that I can work with anyone and make something good.
There’s good in everybody, and you can find that, and the challenge is
finding it and utilizing it to the best of your abilities.

Had Dillard been playing drums since ‘83? He sounds
really great on the album, and I can’t imagine he just picked it right
back up.

BO: He’s played in blues bands and he had a couple
bands here and there, but it’s more of a hobby thing. He’s more of a
full-time, 40-a-week union guy. Three kids too, man. Good luck.
[Laughs.] So, this is a side thing for him, and we had a lot of fun. Me
and Dillard have been friends since high school. His destiny did not lie
where I ended up. He lives in a house that’s about a mile from the
house he grew up in, in the town we went to high school in. That was
just how it was going to work. And me and him have remained friends
since then. And this has been really fun. I really put my thinking cap
on to make that happen, and I’m really glad.

This album seems like a really authentic way to do
what other bands have done with reunion tours and stuff like that. But
you guys work too hard to ever have quit in the first place.

BO: No, we never had a reunion tour. Just
reinvention tours. Most reunion tours don’t revolve around a new album,
and if they do, it’s not a very good album, generall. I like to think
this is just as good as anything we’ve ever done. For me, I can listen
to and enjoy the records right up until the time when they come out, and
then at that time, I’m done. You let the general public have it and let
it have a life of its own.

Is it ever a challenge to work someone new into the fold, or incorporate some new theme? Or is it par for the course?

BO: Well, nothing’s par for the course. Par for the
course for musicians is not really doing anything different. Normal, you
know what I mean?

Right, but you guys have been doing it for so long,
have changed and adapted so many different ways, does changing just
come naturally, or is it something you still have to make an effort at?

BO: Well, you know, we have certainly in
the last six years reinvented the band a number of times. If you count
the Rutmanis era [bassist Kevin Rutmanis, from 1998-2005], which ended
dramatically and wasn’t anything I was looking forward to doing, I was
kind of forced into that due to extracurricular activities that have
nothing to do with me, those decisions were never made lightly. So, when
that happened, Dale and I were very discouraged fellows at that point. I
made a decision then that I was never going to put myself in that
position again. It was like, I was going to do what I wanted to do, and
whatever I did, including Dale, was going to be the Melvins. No matter
what it was.

So, then, I’m not going to be in a position where I have
that much at stake in one person or more. So, with that in mind, it kind
of felt like it was freeing. Now we could do whatever we want. Not that
we didn’t do whatever we wanted, but now band-wise anything goes. Now, I
have no idea of any other situation like that. I don’t know of any band
that will utilize new members in a way that’s creative. I’m a firm
believer in letting people do their thing, let the musicians play, if I
already like what they do I should feel confident enough in letting them
do it. So, when we got the Big Business guys in the band, we basically
reinvented the band completely, from the ground up, with two drummers in
the band and a bass player who sang lead. And then, that was a big
milestone for us. It was a huge deal, and we approached everything like
we were a brand new band. We didn’t try to make those guys shoehorn our
old ideas into what was going on.

My philosophy to them was “I’ll let you drummers work this
out. I have a bunch of ideas, but I don’t really particularly care as
long as what you do is good.” The bass player, I told him, “You are a
great bass player and a great singer, we want to utilize that as much as
possible.” And then, after that, we reinvented the band again with
Trevor Dunne playing standup bass [for Melvins Lite]. That was a total
revision of what we were doing, a total renewal of how it would all
work. It was equally impressive, and we once again approached it as if
we were starting a new band. And then with this, we did a couple of live
shows with Dillard where we played stuff from 1983, and Dillard, I
think it was him, mentioned we should do some recordings, write some new
songs… I wrote songs with that idea in mind just like I’d done the
previous two times, or three times with Rutmanis, cause we did the same
thing with him. Basically, my philosophy to bass players to this point
was “Play these songs like this, or make them better. I want you to own
it, one way or another.”

I think David Bowie did that kind of thing really well. If
you listen to a lot of the musicians he played with in the late ‘70s,
especially live stuff, there was a lot of liberty taken, but that
doesn’t mean it was worse. I think a lot of times what they did was
better. If you take Adrian Bellew playing with David Bowie, and songs
where Bellew wasn’t there to record, if you hear any of that live stuff,
he really was able to, Bowie allowed him to put his thumb-print all
over that stuff. I think that’s a great idea, personally. Miles Davis
did the same kind of thing, and I like to think we’re carrying on in the
same grand tradition. But those are the exceptions, there’s not a whole
lot of that. You look at a band like the Smashing Pumpkins, and they
restart. Is it really a coincidence that they got a female bass player
and an Asian guitar player? What are the odds? Know what I mean?

Photo by Katie Scheuring

I know Mike had played a few shows with you in the past
couple of years, but how exactly did the idea of doing a record come
about? Was it just a matter of those shows going well and wanting to
keep playing together?DC: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, when we initially did
it, it was for Jello Biafra’s birthday. He had a big birthday party
with a bunch of bands playing. I think he wanted the Melvins, and then
we decided to do it with Mike because Jello had actually put out the
vinyl for Mangled Demos, which was the original Melvins demos
actually, with the original Melvins band, and then a bunch of other
stuff, practice tape stuff, live stuff, as much stuff as those guys
could dig up. So, I had mentioned to Buzz a long time ago, “Oh, you guys
should do a show when you put the record out.” And he was like,
“…Yeah…but I don’t know if we could do it with Matt Lukin. So, if we do,
you could play bass.” So, that’s how I got elected to play bass.Nice of him to throw you that bone, there.DC: Right. [Laughs.] Well, and that was a long time
ago. It was if and when. So, this thing that did come up was I was
playing at Jello’s birthday party. So, we’re in pretty much an old set
from when Dillard was in the band, what the band was doing right before I
joined them, pretty much. Picked some of the songs that we thought
would be good, and learned a set, and recorded it, and listened back,
and thought, “That pretty much sounded the way you guys did in 1983,
‘84.”
And, I don’t know, [we] just had a good time doing it and decided
let’s just write new songs. Don’t bother making this some nostalgic,
like, “Hey, this is what the band was when…” I mean, we kind of did at
first, “This is what the band was like in 1983,” but we realized pretty
quickly that we could just do new songs and that would be this
completely weird, different band, you know? No bands do that, really. At
least they try, but not too many are successful.Had you guys been keeping in contact with Mike that whole time? Had he been following the Melvins?DC: Yeah, we’d always been friends with him. And
we’d hang out with him, certainly, whenever we’d come to Seattle he’d
come to shows, and all that. Yeah, we’ve always remained friends with
him. It’d always felt like… There’s not too many people that I know from
where we grew up, where we started, that we still feel like we have a
connection with. He’s definitely one of those guys. I mean, just playing
with him, it’s like, “Yeah, you’re totally one of us.” I still feel
comfortable with him. I don’t know, same sense of humor. We still laugh
about the same stupid shit.Definitely sounds that way on the record.DC: Yeah. Yeah… [Laughs.] There are a couple of
songs I really like his drumming a lot on, too, where it’s like, “Wow,
that’s so cool, I never would have thought to play it like that.” And
that’s really great, you know, to hear that kind of stuff. Now I really
want to play it live, and I want to learn it. He won’t really be able to
play with us. He won’t be able to tour that much with us. He’s got a
regular job, a wife, three kids. A union job. So, he won’t be able to
tour too much, but there are a few songs I’d really like to learn to
play on drums.Did he get the bug? Is he going to be involved in more music in the future?DC: Oh yeah, I’m sure. I think we all had a good time doing this. And I’m sure he’s always happy when we hand him a little scratch,
you know? [Laughs.] “Cool, I get to take a vacation and I get paid for
it. Great!” So, hopefully we do more. We took him to England with us and
did this whole big thing with ATP where we played with that version of
the Melvins, we did the Big Business version of the Melvins, and we’ve
also got the Melvins Lite version of the Melvins.

I’m always impressed by how you two manage to
change things up every time up, add in new wrinkles, and still manage to
come up with something that is so clearly from your unique brains.

BO: Hey, nice, thank you! You know, it happens. Not often, though. I don’t know what I can attribute it to.

With “99 Bottles of Beer” and “In The Army Now”, as always
with the Melvins, it seems like there’s this really great intersection
between this real sense of humor and deep, heavy musicianship. Do you
guys consciously blend the two when you sit down to write stuff, or is
that just your natural demeanor?DC: It kind of evens out. We’ve obviously been
influenced by things like The Fuggs, and I always felt like The Who had
that sense of humor. Serious musicians who are still able to poke fun
at things. The Who, certainly. I would say The Who Sell Out record, that one’s got really strange humor on it. It almost has, for me, the same vibe, I guess.Is that just a matter of not taking yourself too seriously?

BO: That’s true, but also you have to
remember, on this record, the three weird songs, “Tie My Pecker To A
Tree”, “You’re in the Army Now”, and “99 Bottles of Beer”, you’ve gotta
listen to those songs. Those are meticulously recorded. [Laughs.] We
worked as hard on those songs as anything we did on the record. They’re
goofy, but one of my main influences is a band called The Fuggs. They
would’ve thought that was funny. I think it’s funny.

Or Captain Beefheart

BO: Exactly. That’s it. I actually saw
some reviews of the record saying “I’m going to take off points for
those three songs,” or “those don’t really belong on the record.” I
wanna go, “You know what, I really want to talk to you. I want to write
down what belongs on an album. I wanna find from you what exactly
belongs on an album. I wanna know what your favorite album is of all
time.” You ask people stuff like that. You can ask people, “Tell me what
your favorite album is of all time. Tell me what your five favorite
albums are of all time.” You’ll get a strange list, or you’ll get
strange looks, cause they don’t have that perspective.

A good example of that is, we did some records with Jello Biafra, and he’s into politics. Publicly.
So, he’s complaining and complaining about presidents, and I go,
“Jello, I know what presidents you don’t like, but what president do you
think actually did the best job of any president ever.” And he goes,
“Huh. I don’t know. No one’s ever asked me that.” Are you fucking
joking? You only think about what you don’t like, not what you do like.
He thought that was pretty funny. He goes, “That’s pretty good.
[Laughs.] I didn’t get an answer from him. I think he’s still thinking about that.

But, by and large, 90% of the reviews we get are good, but
that cuts both ways as well. Because, if you look at a bad review, and
you look through and see what else this guy has reviewed, it all becomes
clear to you why he doesn’t like the band. Or if you look at a band
because he mostly likes crap. Or then you find one amazing review of a
band you don’t like, then that brings you back to square one. It’s the
great equalizer. I think that stuff is really good. I don’t see anything
wrong with it.

I think those songs are as good as anything that’s on the
record, as important as anything that’s on the record. They’re not
throw-away. Nothing we do is throw-away. If anything irritates me, it’s
that kind of thinking, that we do throw-away material, or that I put
filler on records. I’ve never done filler, ever.

DC: Yeah. You have to be able to poke fun at yourself. Most musicians, most people are really serious about everything.
[Laughs.] I’ve played with plenty of musicians that are like that, and
those are the kind of people…If you ever wonder why people would break a
band up, it’s the people who just have huge egos and take themselves
too seriously.
I don’t know. I guess I’ve always been realistic about this whole
thing, about everything, not trying to be too extravagant, as far as all
that goes. Like, living beyond your means on tour and not coming home
with any money. Anything else that has to do with our band. Except,
somehow, we’re pretty fucking weird. Weird in some respects, and totally
normal and conservative in other respects. In other ways we’re out
there kooky, crazy, wacky, out of our minds.

I think a lot of people take the sense of humor and think it’s something you’re not taking seriously.

BO: Do they imagine Alice Cooper’s
“School’s Out” wasn’t taken seriously? That’s a hilarious record. It’s
funny all the way through it, you’re laughing your ass off, up until
where he graduates from high school and walks off into the dust, a
broken man. It’s all good. As the hero rides off into the sunset. We’re
not supposed to take that seriously? It’s fucking genius is what it is.
I’m not supposed to take “Kill for Peace” by the Fuggs seriously? I’m
not supposed to? They take it seriously. I’m not supposed to take
anything Frank Zappa ever did seriously? Okay. Or Primus? Or the
Residents? Or any number of a million bands out there? We’re not
original in that sense, by any means.

It’s almost like an enforced binary where you’re
either incredibly serious or find things funny, and there’s no room to
mix the two.

BO: The funny thing is the serious bands you can laugh at more than any of the other ones.

Speaking of the Pumpkins…

BO: I don’t know much about them. I’ve
never owned any of their records. I’ve never really met them. I’m sure
that Billy has his good qualities, and probably if I listened to their
entire catalog, I could find 10 minutes of music that I thought was
okay, but I’ll probably never do that. Even the worst bands I can find
something I like. I really honestly can’t say. I just thought it was
funny that when they replaced the band members, gender and race seemed
to be issues. It would really have to be explained to me with charts and
diagrams exactly how that makes a difference. [Laughs.] Oh well. “We’re
going to get the best female bass player we can get.” Oh, really? Why
not just get the best bass player? [Laughs.] Maybe you guys could be
better. “Guitarist wanted. Nothing but Asian need apply.” Can you
imagine? That’s like saying “Guitarist wanted. No Asians.”

It’s as much Hollywood casting call as it is a band.

BO: Which I find to be amazing. An
all-female band from the ‘90s that will remain nameless, that were
having trouble with their drummer, my suggestion to them was, “When you
get back to Hollywood, get one of those hair metal drummers. Those guys
are usually good. Like a Tommy Lee style drummer, it would improve your
band amazingly. That would up the ante. If you had your band with Tommy
Lee playing drums, it would be fucking great, because he could play that
kind of stuff. There are a million of those kind of kids, get a young
guy who’s a real powerhouse kind of drummer.” And they just stared at me
like I was nuts, and they go, “If we replace the drummer it’d have to
be a girl.” And I was just like, “What the fuck are you talking about?
So, gender doesn’t matter until it’s all that matters.” [Laughs.] So
much for being good. Don’t you think that kind of stuff is hilarious?

Photo by Katie Scheuring

And it happens so frequently in pop music and it’s
sneered at by people in indie movements, but then people want to have
their image too.

BO: The indie people, the “no rules”
people, the problem with them is there’s too many rules. [Laughs.] Or
heavy metal bands. I love heavy metal, and I love the fact that it’s
rebel music and all that, and at least they’re pissed off, but you could
never convince them to shave their heads and wear pink tutus. As good
as that sounds. That would really up the ante in my book. I love that
kind of stuff. Why would you want to look like everybody else? Like my
parents said to me when I was in grade school, and everybody was wearing
some kind of pants or something, “Well, why do you want to look just
like everybody else? Why do you want to do things just like everybody
else?” And then I would think to myself, you guys have only ever done
and worn exactly what you’re peers are wearing, and now you’re telling
me that too. Show me how it’s done. But that’s never going to happen. I
always thought that was really funny. “If you’re friends jumped off a
bridge would you do it too?” It’s like, “you pretty much do whatever
everyone around you is doing all the time.” That’s the way music is
too.

Early on I realized that stuff. Amongst the rock ‘n roll
crowds, the “anarchy, anarchy now.” There’s more rules there than
anywhere else. Jesus Christ. You have to keep a fucking slide rule to
keep up with that shit. “What else can’t I do?” That’s what I loved
about early punk rock anyway, especially late ‘70s, all the bands were
so different. Talking Heads, The Ramones, Gang of Four, Blondie, the Sex
Pistols, The Clash, they all offered you something different, you know?
The Damned were different from the Jam, The Germs were different. It
was great. Unbelievable shit. Now it’s a lot more compartmentalized.
But, having said that, if you look at all the records that were released
each year, I like about the same percentage of those records as I ever
did. It’s just that my record collection has only expanded because years
have gone by. There’s a few bands that slip through the cracks, and you
go, “Wow, I really like this.” And then you buy it. But, by and large,
it’s very few.

It seems like some of the serious half of the split in your
demeanor comes from having an incredible work ethic. Taking the work
seriously, but not the people behind it. DC: Yeah. You know, and also, we’re in a situation
where we have to do this all the time. I know bands that are probably as
big as us, or could be as big as us, but they don’t do much with their
band. I’m not going to name names at all, but we’re a career-minded
band, I guess, the equivalent of your average working joe, you know.I would think that’s how you’ve been able to go on for 30 years now. DC: At the same time, it’s fun. It could be worse. I could be shoveling shit someplace. Beats that. Certainly beats that.

I’ve read that you guys recorded in huge sessions,
with multiple albums being recorded at once. Does that get tricky when
you’re working with multiple people?

DC: A lot of this record, about half of it I think, we recorded about the same time we did the Melvins Lite thing, the EP we did with the Big Business guys, and Everybody Loves Sausages,
the covers record, so this is kind of all… part of it all started when
we were doing the bulk recording for all those different things.

BO: Well, I write songs all the time. I
was working on music this morning before you called. I was up with the
sun, and I was working on music for probably an hour and a half, right
up to the moment you called. Then I’ll put it away, and then I’ll go and
record some more at the studio at noon. I’m pretty much always
recording.

That’s impressive.BO: Well, you know, I mean, if you actually work at
your craft, and work on music… We’re really only talking about music.
We’re not talking about brain surgery or sending somebody to the moon.
If weirdos like Andy Warhol can work his entire life up until he died, I
certainly should be able to. I don’t think it’s that difficult. If you
don’t like this song, do another one. I don’t know what people are
doing. They say, “I don’t want to make a record that sucks.” Well, you
kind of already have. [Laughs.] What are you talking about? What the
fuck are you worried about? Especially multi-platinum musicians that
don’t work 60 days a year. I don’t get it.

Are those huge recording sessions something you’d done in the past, or was this something new?

DC: Bulk recordings like that? Yeah, I
mean, that was just something we kind of set up and did. What we did was
make our own studio. We weren’t really on the clock, or anything like
that, and could sit their and record for as little or as long as we
wanted to. We did that the winter before last, in Los Angeles here.
Since we didn’t have any real plan of going to a studio and doing “a
record”, we just kept recording and thought of other things we could
record, one of them being this stuff with Mike Dillard. We invited him
to come down and hang out. I think we recorded half of the record, and
then we went to Vegas. That was our big, busy recording schedule.

Buzz writes almost all the stuff, let’s say almost 100% of
at least the original song ideas. Sometimes it’ll get farmed out to
other people to do vocals or whatever, but we pretty much write
everything, write it, run it right there, run it ’til you’ve got it, and
then start recording it. Don’t think about it too much, really, you
know? It’s not like at this point in our career we have to sit and
rehearse a song over and over and over again til we get it the way we
want it. Definitely for us it’s different from the way most people do
things. The main reason why is we’ve done so many records. A shit ton of
records. Absolutely.

You’ve worked with, collaborated with so many
different great musicians, and had a lot of different musicians in the
band. Do you have anyone you’d like to record a Melvins album with?

DC: Yeah, I mean, we always think about
stuff like that, and I guess that’s kind of why we’re doing all these
projects, like the covers record with all the guest stars [Everybody Loves Sausages],
people we could think of to do that kind of stuff. We’ve actually got
something cooking that’s along those lines, but I won’t say too much
about it. But we plan on doing more of that stuff. But is there one
person? Does it have to be someone living?

I guess not. Let’s give it a no.

DC: Miles Davis, when he was doing his ‘70s era stuff.

I can see that happening. If he were still around, I could see that happening.

DC: We’re big fans of his stuff, and I’ve
been listening to that a lot lately for some reason. It’s funny because
not everybody can hear that stuff, and both Buzz and I like it, but if
both wives of ours heard it they would fucking hate it. It’s something
about the sound of the trumpet.

Something about Bitches Brew that just wouldn’t sit well?

DC: [Laughs.] No, it’s not a ladies
record. At least none of the ladies I know. You might want to watch out
for that lady if you do find her anyway, though. [Laughs.] Stay away.

BO: I would like to collaborate with
[Miles Davis], Jimi Hendrix, or Judy Garland. I think they would’ve been
wonderful. Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix were going to do an album
together, but that was right when Jimi Hendrix died. I think that would
be incredible. I got into Miles’ stuff really heavily in the ‘90s. I
toured with Terry Bozzio playing drums on Fantomas, he’s a huge Miles
Davis fan, and when you’re around somebody like that, and they’re such a
big fans of something, and they talk about it passionately, it’s hard
not to see it through their eyes, and that really pushed me over the
brink of being a huge electric era Miles Davis fan.

I would say that that’s a huge influence on us that no one ever talks about. Albums like On the Corner
and stuff like that are huge influences on us. His stuff would be
considered weird now. I play that stuff for people, and it either clicks
with them or they don’t hear anything. It’s all or nothing. You’re
either a huge Miles Davis fan or you think it’s garbage. I’ve never
found anybody who’s moderately into Miles Davis. I just don’t try to
convince them. It’s not for everybody. But it should be. It’s sort of
like the other day I was talking with this friend of mine and we were
talking movies, and we were like, “Every Academy Awards, they should
have to screen the movie Holy Mountain, just to purge the shit
that everybody’s been voting on.” Every Academy member, and the audience
at the Awards should have to watch that movie from beginning to end, or
they can’t vote.

Maybe the filmmakers too, see what that does.

BO: All of it. Well, mostly the voting
people. Because the Academy Awards are such horseshit. Why don’t you
guys watch something that’s actually interesting? Just watch it, and see
what you think. You should be forced to whether you like it or not. A
lot of music should be like that, but I don’t know. I just thought that
was funny.

With all those changes, you typically stick with the drums.
Were you comfortable coming up with bass lines for the new material?

DC: Well, I certainly would’ve written bass parts had I ever played bass in the band.But I know you’ve played bass in other bands in the past.DC: Well, you know. Yeah. On Houdini I might’ve played a few songs on bass, but I can’t say I wrote those
parts necessarily, cause we already had the songs going, our bass
player just didn’t play on that one and I wound up playing it. There are
a couple of songs where I kind of tried to write bass lines to it. A
lot of the early Melvins stuff didn’t really have bass lines to begin
with, they just follow the guitar. I tried to make them a little
different, do little tricks and stuff. I kind of play bass like I play
the drums. I try to do these little fills. It’s also a rhythm
instrument, I guess, so it doesn’t seem too weird to me. Hell, any
jackass can play the bass. [Laughs.] We’ve had plenty of them. [Laughs.]
I’ll just get kicked out and play drums again. Anyway.You’ve done plenty of stuff with multiple drummers, but was
it at all strange to see somebody else recording drums on a Melvins
record instead of you?DC: It wasn’t really strange seeing me playing bass
with Mike playing drums, but it was weird seeing me playing bass with
Buzz playing guitar. I was just like, “Huh. This seems really out of
place.” But I can play. I like playing guitar. Bass is kind of the same
thing for me. It’s easier. There’s less gear to move. I don’t have to
change my underpants after I play the bass. That’s one plus about, I
guess. Might just have to change a shirt. My socks and underwear are
still somewhat dry, to the point that I won’t need to seal them in a
hermetically sealed plastic bag after I play a show.

Do you have a particular favorite album?

BO: I can’t pick out one album. We’ve done
such a wide variety of things. I could do a “What five records would
you say if somebody had never heard your band?” To cover it, let’s see, Tres Cabrones, Freak Puke, Nude With Boots, Stag, and Bullhead.

That does cover a pretty wide swath.

BO: And then I would add in the next five, the Lustmord album, Pigs of the Roman Empire, Hostile Ambient Takeover, Colossus of Destiny, the Lysol album, and maybe Stoner Witch.
And then you have a good cross-section of everything we’ve ever done.
We’re not the Ramones. As much as I love the Ramones, we’re not the
Ramones. You could put the needle anywhere on a Ramones album and go
“What album is this on?” I don’t know. That was kind of their deal.
We’re certainly not like that. But then we stole our idea for our name
from the Ramones, so there you go. [Laughs.] I always loved that about
those guys, you didn’t know what it was. I don’t mean to shit on them.

Are you able to look back through those records and
have any real nostalgia? Do you spend much time thinking back about
different eras or albums? Do you ever go back and listen, revisit? Or is
it a keep on moving forward, shark-like movement?

DC: Yeah, no, once we make a record we
don’t really… I mean, you listen to it a little right after making it.
Maybe occasionally you’ll hear it someplace. But I don’t really know
anyone who sits around and goes, “You know what, I haven’t heard this
record of mine in a while.” Not really. You’d never think of going back
and listening to something, unless you’re going to learn something. Then
you hear it sometimes and go, “Oh, weird.” Or sometimes I’ll be
someplace where there’ll be a Melvins record playing, and I’ll recognize
it and go “What the fuck is that?” and it’ll take a second because it’s
familiar, but I won’t remember that it’s me. Buzz always says, “You
wouldn’t read your own books.” Which is certainly true. Hey, I’m
egotistical, but I’m not that egotistical.

BO: We’re working on a new one right now that I
don’t really want to talk about at the moment, but it’ll be a
head-scratcher for a lot of people [laughs], and it’ll be fucking
amazing. A spring release. So, that’ll be three full-length albums in
about a year.

DC: We’re going to Australia in December,
and we’ll be there for about three weeks doing a tour. Big Business are
doing that one, they’re back playing with us right now. Their bass
player just had a baby, so he took some time off and we did the tour
with Jeff Pinkus from Butthole Surfers playing bass. And after that, I
don’t know, we’ve probably got another record coming out someplace.
Somewhere in the deck we’ll play that card, then tour again, and keep
the whole thing going. Next year’s tour will be our 30-year anniversary
tour with me being in the band. It’s my 30-year anniversary tour.

Do you just wind up playing every instrument on that record?

DC: [Laughs.] Yeah. In fact, it’s just me,
even on tour. Doing Melvins songs I had nothing to do with, or
something like that. Yeah, I don’t know. Definitely will be some plans
next year. I think everybody will be interested in the stuff we’re
doing. It’ll be weird and different. Imagine that. Completely different
from what we just did. So, there you go.

Do you two have any sort of plan of when to call it
quits? Do you have a thing that is the bottom of the well, the thing
that once you’ve done that, you’re done?

DC: Nah. Run it til’ the wheels fall off. Run it into the
ground, however that may be. Whether it’s graceful old age or a fiery
wreck someplace. We’ll see. We’ll see how it all goes down. Hopefully
it’ll be good.

I’m glad to hear that, and I’ll put a vote down for graceful old age.

DC: Yeah, that’d be nice. We’ll do it
until we can’t physically do it anymore. I don’t see why not. I mean, I
still like it and hopefully everybody else does. Well, some people like
it. Somebody someplace might like what we’re doing.

BO: I don’t know. I’ve never been in a
position where I could quit working. Some people…like Salinger wrote one
huge book and didn’t do shit the rest of his life. He may have been
writing, but he didn’t produce anything. I don’t know that that wouldn’t
be the case if I’d made a million dollars a long time ago. I have no
idea. But it didn’t work out that way for Andy Warhol or Francis Bacon.
Those are the people I get my inspiration from. I don’t want to be
somebody who takes it for granted and quits. I also don’t want to be
John Kennedy Toole and blow my brains out before the cows come home. I
don’t want to have that happen either. But I also don’t want to pretend
that this is just no big deal, and I could just walk away from it. I
don’t want to do that.

You can always do something interesting. If you don’t like
doing what you’re doing, then just do something different. I play a lot
of golf over the last six years, and somebody says, “We play the short
courses a lot for practice.” It’s like, “Oh, that’s too easy.” Then make
it harder. Hit the first ball into the woods. Now it’s not easy.
[Laughs.] “Well, I don’t want to do a tour like that.” Then don’t do a
tour like that, do something you think is fun. Figure out something
else. That’s like with this. Why can’t we do a record with the lineup
from 1983? Why not? Why don’t bands do that kind of stuff? What’s the
problem? It’s not hard to do. Especially bands that have nothing but
money and time on their hands and don’t do shit. Nothing. [Laughs.]
Nothing. If I was in a position to do those kinds of things, I’d work
all the time. What else are you supposed to do? None of that made sense
to me.

I always wonder about professional athletes, their career
is over in their late 30s. Then what? A lot of that does not end well. I
don’t want to have that kind of thing happen either. Money is not an
end-all to happiness. People have said to me, which I think is crazy,
“Do you ever get jealous that Kurt Cobain got fame and money?” And I go,
“Kurt Cobain is fucking dead. Are you kidding? What are you talking
about? You think I would trade places with a dead guy?” Yeah, I wish I
had been more famous, and had more money, and was dead. No, no, no. I
win. I win. He doesn’t win. He loses. He’s a major loser. His fucking
loss. He left a baby at the mercy of that woman. And, it couldn’t be
worse. There’s nothing good about any of that.

I’m very happy with who I am and exactly what I’m doing,
and it’s way more than I ever expected. When we started this band with
Dillard over 30 years ago, my major goal, what I really wanted to do was
just to be able to play a real show. And I surpassed that within six
months of being in a band. The rest is just gravy, all the better.
People should take lessons from us. This is how you do it. And it’s
almost like big bands look at what we’re doing and they don’t take us
seriously. Like, “That’s not really what you do, that’s not really how
it works. We can’t do that.” No. You can do that. You can do more than
that. You can do anything you want to. Don’t do it, that’s the tragedy.
Oh well.

2 comments:

Thanks! Im gonna get in to this later tonight. Bill is on board with sharing the CB. He was presented with a rather convincing argument (if I say so myself) But I should say with hindsight that it wasn't going to take very much. He was immediately sold merely by the enthusiasm of the work's merits. If there is any, the bad news is that only ten sample pages exist in the library of congress and he doesnt know how to access even those. The full hard copy of all volumes is in a box in a storage facility in PHOENIX where he probably won't return to for a year or so in reality. At that time he is full on board with scanning the whole thing and sharing with all who show interest. I volunteered your and my services--ahem--in the digitizing process to which he appeared grateful and totally uninterested in facing the task himself.